Events

Battles

Background

Maria Calavera inherited her silver eyes from her father, a former soldier who was also her teacher. Maria's father was able to find little information about the power and abilities of those with silver eyes - so little that he grew suspicious that those with silver eyes were being targeted. Maria did not attend any of the Huntsmen Academies, but she had the highest score when she took her licensing exam.

Based on her father's suspicions, Maria tried to hide her Silver Eyes by adopting a persona known as "The Grimm Reaper". This disguise included using a skeletal mask to hide her eyes.

Reaper's End

Maria crosses a rope-suspended bridge in a mountain range. She hears a screech nearby and turns to face a gigantic Nevermore heading straight for her. She engages the Grimm, and after a short battle causes it to crash into the rocky ground below. The Nevermore survives the fall, however, and Maria resorts to using her Silver Eyes to end the battle. This petrifies the Grimm, which soon crumbles.

As Maria reclaims her weapons, she finds herself targeted by Tock and her henchmen, the Faunus claiming she has only 60 seconds left to live. The Grimm Reaper engages her adversaries, taking two down before Tock breaks her Aura. Maria then merges her kamas into one larger weapon, taking down the last henchman before focusing on Tock. The Faunus manages to bite through the wooden shaft of her scythe, breaks her mask with a headbutt and slashes out Maria's eyes with a single strike of her sword.

Fall of a legend

Blinded and screaming in agony, Maria fires her weapon at Tock until she runs out of bullets. She then hurls it toward Tock, who nimbly evades it. As Tock prepares to land the killing blow, Maria finds her second kama and uses it to summon the first toward her. The Faunus is stabbed in the back by the weapon, and Maria uses her second kama to end her enemy's life. She later undergoes surgery to replace her eyes with prosthetic ones. Afraid of being targeted again, Maria goes into hiding, eventually leading the whole world to believe that the Grimm Reaper was dead.

Heading for Argus

Unexpected addition to the heroes

Maria is seen aboard the train that the heroes take on their journey to Atlas. When they decide to keep passengers safe in the front cars and use the rear ones to fight Grimm, Maria stays on the rear cars unlike everyone else. As a result, she is present when the rear cars crash, and she greets everyone.

Maria then rebukes Yang Xiao Long for calling her "a defenseless old lady", but later concedes her point. She remains silent as the heroes confront Ozpin about his lies, and she bears witness to Ruby Rose summoning Jinn, the being of the Relic of Knowledge. She stares in disbelief as Ruby asks Jinn what Ozpin is hiding from the group.

After Jinn finishes her tale, tensions in the group rise, even more so when Ozpin seals himself in Oscar Pine's mind. At that point, Maria steps up to give the disheartened group direction, shutting down Yang's protests in order to get them moving. Later, Maria rides on Bumblebee while it is pushed by Yang as the heroes find Brunswick Farms and enter to take shelter from the snowstorm.

Nightmare of Brunswick Farms

After Qrow breaks down the front door of the main house, Maria shouts at the group to close it before everyone searches out the house to find ways to warm themselves. Tension rises for the group when Weiss and Yang find a pair of decomposed corpses in bed in the master bedroom. While Maria and the students gather around the fire in the living room, they learn from Qrow that there are more corpses in beds in the other houses, and they have no other choice but to spend the night at the manor until the snowstorm stops. As the others search for food and transport, Maria takes a book off of the shelf, reasoning that she will find a story for bedtime.

Maria reads more of the books with numbers on them and discovers that they are the diaries of Bartleby, the head of Brunswick Farms. She learns that he and other families founded the estate to try and live outside the Kingdom, and it worked for a while until many hardships, which included the Grimm, slowed down crop production and made life harder. This makes Maria pity Bartleby as he seemed like an ingenious man. She continues to read the farmer's diary until she falls asleep on the sofa.

Learning of the evil beneath the farms

The next morning, the group is about to leave when Qrow's Semblance flattens one of the tires of the flatbed, causing Maria to comment that they are "beacons for back luck". After Ruby accidentally drops the Relic into the well, Maria continues to read Bartleby's diary as Team RWBY goes after the lamp. She is later horrified when she finds an entry detailing the Apathy. Maria jumps down the well as Team RWBY come across the Grimm. They find a cellar with an exit, but it is locked from the outside and the Apathy close in on them, although everyone collapses from the Apathy's effects, Maria is puzzled when Ruby somehow pushes back the Grimm long enough to save Blake. When the Apathy attack again, Maria crawls over to Ruby and learns that her eyes are silver. She then instructs Ruby to think about the people she cares for and tells the girl that life is beautiful and precious and that it must be protected. This prompts Ruby to unleash her powers once again with more control, and Ruby destroys all of the Apathy within the vicinity, leaving Maria in awe at the extent of Ruby's powers. They then escape from the cellar and find Qrow passed out at the bar, and they quickly escape from the farm estate.

On the road, Maria reveals what she learned from Bartleby's diary - about the Apathy and the farmer's attempt to cut costs on Huntsman by using this type of Grimm. She later laments not being able to see that the Grimm were responsible for the deaths of the farm estate residents. When Ruby asks her about her knowledge of the Grimm and how she guided the girl in using her powers, Maria answers that she once had silver eyes.

A Brief Respite

After a flashback to her final fight as the Grimm Reaper, present-day Maria states her deep regret over losing not only her eyes but the will to fight. She refuses to be appeased by Qrow and Blake and states that some of them are already stronger than her, looking at Yang as she does. Maria laments that she was unable to do as much as she could for the world, but she is then asked by Ruby to train her how to use her silver eyes. Suddenly they hear an incoming call from Ruby's Scroll, and later find that they have finally arrived in Argus.

Maria and the others are reunited with Team JNPR, who take them on a tour of the city, briefly relaying its history to them. They are soon shown to the house of Jaune Arc's older sister Saphron Cotta-Arc, and Maria enjoys a freshly made meal along with everyone else.

The next day Maria along with Ozpin's faction visit the Atlesian military base in Argus. The guards initially refuse the group access but are convinced to bring the base commander, Caroline Cordovin, to meet with them. Maria reveals that she and Cordovin have a past history, a mostly negative one.

Maria mentors Ruby

Returning to the Cotta-Arc house, Maria visits the garden in the back while Team RWBY reveal Ozpin and Salem's pasts to Jaune, Ren and Nora. Ruby finds Maria sitting at the backyard, who had wanted to get away from the yelling, and they discuss the abilities and history of the Silver-Eyed Warriors. The elder also reveals her Semblance of "Preflexes" and advises the girl to create a state of mind that she can tap into to call upon her Silver Eye powers to protect Humanity. When Ruby is confused as to how her powers affected Cinder Fall, Maria ponders if there was something the girl did not see.

After Oscar's disappearance, Maria joins the search for the farm boy but later returns to the house with Team RWBY at night with no success. They find Qrow completely drunk on the front stairs as they are joined by the others. Everyone is later shocked when they find Oscar back at the house cooking dinner for them. As she holds onto Adrian Cotta-Arc for Terra Cotta-Arc, Maria listens to Jaune as he suggests that they try to steal a military airship to get to Atlas. She then observes as Qrow quickly rejects the idea, and watches as Ruby stands up to her uncle and declares that the group should do things their way. Maria then chuckles at Qrow and comments that he did not give his niece the credit she deserves.

The Airship Heist

Maria watches as things go from bad to worse

For her part of Jaune's plan to steal an airship, Maria hides inside of Weiss' luggage. She pilots the airship after Weiss disposes of the two Altas bodyguards. However, when the military base contacts them over the radio, Maria realizes the plan has gone awry. She tries compensating by pretending to be an Atlesian pilot, but her elderly voice gives her away. Then, when Cordovin demands she return her airship, Maria mocks her by chewing cashews into the radio. Maria is later shocked as Cordovin unleashes the Colossus and open fires on the airship, calling it a "warning shot". Realizing that Cordovin has lost control, Maria flies towards the rest of the group at the cliffside.

After Weiss disembarks on the cliffside to protect the group, they decide to fight Cordovin by utilizing their size and numbers to distract Cordovin and find a weakness in the Colossus. Maria picks up Oscar to help him find a weak spot from the air. Although the group successfully disables the mech’s shield generator, Cordovin is still able to get the upper hand and defeat most of the group. Upon seeing Ruby in danger, Maria fires a missile at Cordovin, only for it to be caught and thrown back at the ship. She then listens to Oscar as he points out that the mech’s missiles pop out of the cannon, meaning that one well-placed shot can decimate the missiles while they’re still in the launcher. With Ruby as their best shot of completing the task, Maria picks her up so that she can get up close at a good range and tricks Cordovin into exposing the missiles. But the plan fails when the operative notices Ruby and draws the missiles back in and hits the ship with a lightning blast. The attack electrocutes the ship and Maria’s eyes, causing her to go blind and prompting Oscar to take over. They crash land into the trees, and although the ship is still intact, Maria’s eyes are still malfunctioning. This makes her miss Ruby’s victory over Cordovin when she destroys the cannon from the inside. After her eyes are fixed, Maria tells everyone to get on board so they can make a run from the military. But the group is shocked when they hear that a Leviathan is approaching the city.

When Blake and Yang get back with the group, they all board the ship with Maria flying it once again. As they approach Argus, she suggests that they use the chaos as their chance to get to Atlas. But after Weiss, Blake and Yang refuse to leave the city at the mercy of the Grimm, they head for the battlefield. As the Leviathan breaks through the first city shield, Ruby comes with a plan to use her silver eyes to defeat the monster. Maria is hesitant of the plan, but Ruby insists that she can use her powers like before at the farm. Maria then flies the ship through the battlefield to get the group close to the Leviathan, but pulls back at Qrow’s command when the Grimm destroys the second shield. Maria then watches Ruby as she goes on Weiss’ Lancer summon and petrifies the Leviathan, breathing a sigh of relief afterwards. But after the giant Grimm breaks its head free, the Grimm Reaper is surprised when Cordovin arrives and kills the Leviathan. The group is then allowed by the operative to pass through to Atlas.

As night falls, Maria informs the group that the airship has just enough fuel to reach their destination. She then compliments Qrow for doing his part back in Argus, commenting that he was there to literally catch Ruby when she fell. When they finally reach the kingdom of Atlas, Maria comments that the sight of the floating city is a sight that she never got used to, and then bangs her eyes when they malfunction. But the mood turns sour when the group sees the Atlas air fleet hovering over the floating city, and then they are greeted by air control.